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‘Whose?’
‘They’re testing and we won’t know for a few days, but my money is on it belonging to Tom Booth. The height of the table matches the scrape on his leg.’
‘Which table?’
‘In the living room. It’s a low table.’
Hal reaches the head of the queue. ‘Americano,’ he tells the barista.
Jen’s talking in his ear. ‘I mean, it could be an accident,’ she says. ‘But the scrape is very fresh, it fits with the timeline of his murder.’
‘One shot or two?’ the barista says. Hal holds up two fingers.
‘If we rule out an accident for now, are we saying that the scrape could have been sustained in the course of a struggle in the home?’ he asks, thinking of the pair of coffee cups they found.
‘It’s a possibility.’
‘But there were no signs of disturbance in the house.’
‘No,’ she concurs.
‘Any results back on the coffee-cup smear?’ he asks.
‘What’s your name?’ the barista asks as Jen tells him no, not yet, she’ll chase it.
He gives his name. The space where people are waiting to pick up their drinks is cramped. A woman scowls at him as he inserts himself into the pack.
‘Hal?’ Jen says.
‘I’m still here. I’m getting coffee. I didn’t catch the last thing you said.’
‘I tasked Dan with looking into Kitty, the original Kitty, Anna Creed’s housekeeper.’
‘Okay,’ he says. The woman who scowled elbows him as she reaches for her drinks. He silently vows that he will never come to this coffee shop again while knowing that of course he will, because it’s the closest one to the office.
‘She grew up in Lydney, a village about a twenty-minute drive from Lancaut. She never married. In 2007 she moved out of the council home her parents brought her up in, after they both died, and she presumably started working at the Manor at some point after that and got that grace and favour cottage. Thelast official trace of her is a speeding ticket she got, but that was while she still worked at the Manor.’
‘Does she have family?’
‘Two sisters. One deceased. The good news is that Dan has tracked down the living one even though her surname is Jones. I’m going to visit her today.’
Hal’s name is called. He grabs his coffee. His phone beeps as he steps outside.
‘I’ve got another call,’ he says. ‘I’ll see you in the office later.’
He cuts her off and says, ‘Steen.’ The street is busy. Traffic thunders past and people weave around him. ‘Hello?’ he says. He stops, to try to hear better.
‘Detective Steen?’
‘Yes.’
‘This is Olly Palmer, from the Manor House at Lancaut. Nicole Booth has just arrived here again. She’s terrified. Her friend, Patrick, who came to stay with her, has been behaving very erratically. It’s a long story, but the short version is that she’s in a bit of a state, and she needs you to come.’
Even though he can’t hear him perfectly, Hal detects an irritating note of self-importance in Olly Palmer’s voice.
‘I’m on my way,’ he says.
He starts to jog to the office. Coffee spills over his hand, scalding him. He stops beside a homeless guy lying in a doorway. Steen meets the guy’s bloodshot eyes and hands him the coffee. ‘It’s hot,’ he says.
